While one wouldn’t normally associate Bruce Meyers and Carroll Shelby with one another, both have plenty in common: They introduced fun, lightweight, trendsetting vehicles; they were later forced to defend those designs against opportunistic copycats; and later this year, Meyers’s Old Red, the prototype Meyers Manx dune buggy, will join one of Shelby’s Cobra Daytona coupes on the National Historic Vehicle Register.

When announcing the Cobra Daytona coupe, CSX2287, as the first vehicle to be placed on the National Historic Vehicle Register last month, Mark Gessler, president of the Historic Vehicle Association, said that the association and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Heritage Documentation Program planned to add at least another 10 vehicles to the register this year, and hundreds, if not thousands, in the coming years. Among the vehicles that the HVA has shortlisted for inclusion this year, perhaps none is quite as colorful as Meyers’s Old Red.

While dune buggies had crawled the sands of Southern California beaches long before Bruce Meyers came along, they were all either stripped-down Jeeps with flotation tires or homebuilt contraptions using car frames, seriously set-back V-8 drivetrains, dual-wheel setups, a simple bench seat and jury-rigged roll bars. “And they always had straight pipes because that’s more fun, far more noisy and far more macho, and here we are boys, let’s make more noise,” Meyers told David LaChance for a profile on him in Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car #49, September 2009.

But, as the Volkswagen Beetle began to make inroads in the United States automotive market in the late 1950s, off-road enthusiasts began to take notice of the car’s lightness, the excellent traction of its rear-engine setup, and the ability to easily separate body from chassis. As James Hale wrote in his book Dune Buggies, the first Volkswagen-based dune buggy can be credited to Scott McKenzie of San Fernando, California, who relieved a Beetle of its body, shortened its chassis, mounted widened wheels and tires, and adapted a Corvair flat-six engine to it. In 1963, Joe Vittone of EMPI even designed and marketed a VW Beetle-based off-roader with a simple sheetmetal body.

Meyers told LaChance he noticed how well the stripped-down VW chassis performed in the sand on his visits to the dunes and beaches in the early 1960s and so, in about 1962, began to think about how to refine the dune buggy, drawing not only on his artistic skills, but also on his experience building fiberglass boats for Jensen Marine. As Hale wrote, Meyers wanted to combine the Volkswagen Schwimmwagen’s high fenders and short wheelbase, the Volkswagen Kubelwagen’s stand-up headlamps and simplicity, the open design of Italian beach cars, and the wide wheels and tires he experimented with on his own Volkswagen Type 2, “all added together with a fine artistic sense of style.”

“I’m an artist and I wanted to bring a sense of movement and gesture to the Manx,” Meyers recently told Top Gear. “Dune buggies have a message: fun. They’re playful to drive and should look like it. Nothing did at the time. So I looked at it and took care of the knowns. The top of the front fenders had to be flat to hold a couple of beers, the sides had to come up high enough to keep the mud and sand out of your eyes, it had to be compatible with Beetle mechanicals and you had to be able to build it yourself. Then I added all the line and feminine form and Mickey Mouse adventure I could.”

Interestingly, rather than use a shortened Volkswagen Beetle pan, Meyers initially decided to lay up his design as a monocoque with built-in attachment points for the Volkswagen suspension and drivetrain. His first design for his fiberglass dune buggy included a few other key differences from later cars as well: a molded-in fuel tank, a flip-up nose to access the battery and spare, and a flip-down windshield. He pulled the first Meyers Manx, which he dubbed Old Red, from its mold in May 1964, and in short order popped out another 11 monocoque Manxes, working nights in his one-car garage in Newport Beach, California.

Bruce Meyers with Ted Mangels and Old Red, 1967.

Besides serving as the prototype and Meyers’s personal dune buggy, Old Red also proved itself in off-road competition. In April 1967, Meyers and his friend Ted Mangels outfitted Old Red with a canvas top, knobby tires, and additional fuel tanks and drove the unpaved route down Mexico’s Baja Peninsula – from Tijuana to La Paz – in 34 hours and 45 minutes, besting the previous time by more than five hours. The run not only captured the attention of off-road enthusiasts, it also inspired the first Mexico 1000 – the race that would later become the Baja 1000 – which Mangels and Vic Wilson won in another Meyers Manx later that year.

Magazine exposure soon followed, as did clamor for more Manxes, so Meyers filed for a patent on his design in February 1965, altered the design to sit atop a shortened Beetle floorpan, and set up B.F. Meyers and Company to produce Meyers Manx kits. Other designs, including the SR/SR2, Tow’d/Tow’dster, and Restorter/Turista, would follow over the next several years, but so would the knockoffs, capitalizing on the demand for dune buggies that Meyers couldn’t come close to meeting. While Meyers pointed to the design patent when taking some of the copycats to court, a federal judge in Sacramento decided against Meyers, essentially opening the floodgates for more replicas. B.F. Meyers closed shop in 1971, a year after Meyers left the company, and Meyers himself went on to invent the fiberglass hot tub and pursue other interests before eventually returning to the world of dune buggies in the early 2000s with his current company, Meyers Manx, Inc.

As for Old Red, after some time bouncing from museum to museum, Meyers restored it in the late 1990s or early 2000s and nowadays continues to drive it at many Manx Club events.

Of the four criteria for a vehicle to be included in the National Historic Vehicle Register (association with important American historic events, association with important American historic figures, its design or construction value, and its informational value), Old Red conceivably meets all four, given its association with Meyers, its association with the establishment of the Mexico 1000, its fiberglass monocoque construction, and its prototype status.

Selection to the register involves a complete documentation of the vehicle, including a fully referenced narrative of the vehicle’s provenance and full photography, which will then be placed in the Library of Congress. No restrictions are placed on subsequent use or sale of the vehicle.

For more information about the HVA and the National Historic Vehicle Register, visit HistoricVehicle.org.

UPDATE (1.May 2014): The HVA will officially induct Old Red into the National Historic Vehicle Register this weekend at the Cars at the Capital event taking place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

47 Responses to “Old Red, the first Meyers Manx dune buggy, to go on National Historic Vehicle Register”

It seemed everybody in high school knew at least 1 person that was doing a dune buggy project. Un fortunately, they soon found out, upon completion of said project, that unless you lived near a beach, ( not too likely in the Mid-West), they were pretty useless, as far as a car was concerned. Many, however, did find their place on a tow-bar behind a motor home, until the Jeep CJ became the hip vehicle of choice for that.

a good friend and VW guru Dr. Hendrix III has an old dune buggy he built in the early 1980’s… still has it, big gold metalflake in mint condition… these are cool toys… google unclehotrod13 to see his dune buggy, named ” MUSCLES”

Bought one of these years ago as a kit. Someone else had bought it and never got started. We had to shorten a VW Bug chassis by about 10 1/2 inches taking out the rear foot wells which effectively put the battery box close to the back of the front seats. Of course we had to try it out without the body which lead to waves of water and mud coming over the driver and passenger. Great fun. Drove it for several years and made trips down to South Padre Island from the Padre Island National Seashore Park along the beach. You pass a sign that says four wheel drive only and just keep on truckin’. Great on road and off road with only the stock VW 40 hp engine. Thank you Bruce Meyers.

I’ve built 5 dune buggies over the years. My Dad and I built the first one in 1964 when I was 16 years old. It was a cut down VW. Dad was an experienced body man.The next 4 were Manx type cars. The one I’m building now is a Manx type but on a custom built racing frame.

McQueen’s buggy was a Manx with a 4-carb high compression, big valve Corvair engine, probably the 164 cid version. It threw sand like a giant badger on steroids. Very cool buggy and cool driver. I thought that was one of the coolest movies ever until I watched it again a few years ago and thought it was very slow moving. We all have been trained by the Hollywood types to expect constant audio/visual overload. Inception was exactly that. I was exhausted after I endured it. Once was enough.

Mr. Mopar, Look up Steve McQueen Thomas Crown Dune Buggy on youtube. McQueen knew how to have fun. If he was right then his Manx had a power to wt ratio of modern supercars. (460 hp/ton vs about 400 for 2014 Z06). What a weapon!

The buggy in the Thomas Crown Affair was a Meyers Manx which was modified by Pete Condos, the Meyers Manx dealer in Burbank. The original movie script called for a Jeep but Steve McQueen visited Condos at his shop and told him what he wanted. All the building, body modifications, wrap around windscreen and paint were done at ConFerr. Tony Nancy did the interior. Andy Granatelli provided Condos (his high school buddy) with the wide Firestones off the STP Indy car.

i love that movie, it’s one of McQueen’s best and far superior to the Pierce Brosnan remake in 1999. and the Manx in the movie is fantastic, read all about it…..http://hunterdunebuggy.com/queenmanx.htm

I worked for a motorhome manufacturer adjacent to the Meyers operation in Fountain Valley, CA in 1970. There was a rumor that Meyers had purchased a huge vacuum forming machine to manufacture dune buggy bodies more quickly and economically than the fiberglass layups. Unfortunately, as the story goes, when you parked them in the hot desert sun the vacuum formed bodies returned to a flat sheet of plastic. I never found out if there was any truth to this tale, but it makes for a good story. Regardless, the Meyers dune buggies are true icons of the era.

The Tow’d boddies were vacuum formed plastic, so guessing the Manx’s could of eventually been too (Bruce would have to answer that one) and no it would take a lot more than desert heat to make it go flat again!!

They had a large ABS plastic vacu-form machine to make the bodies for the Tow’d. They quickly found ABS plastic is prone to crack and has no resistance to brake fluid. They had to replace about 100 ABS bodies with fiberglass at thie expense.

A great example of American ingenuity, and one of the most successful re-purposings on the planet!

Tho I never owned one, I was keenly interested in their engineering and was a subscriber to Dune Buggies and Hot VWs for years.
What set them apart from the knockoffs was the QUALITY of that shell, which led to an extreme ruggedness out in the elements. Also, those fat rear tires, as Car and Driver conceded, compensated “for a multitude of sins”, even the dreaded swing axles that plagued the WVs.

This was, after all, the dawn of the FAT TIRE on the strip and off-road, and people were amazed at the unexpectedly good handling from those donuts. I remember riding in one a couple of times, the driver showing off its go-kart like handling, and me thinking “you could take on a Mini with one of these” – while hanging on for dear life, of course!

And I don’t know about you, Howard, but they were profuse around Southern Ohio [altho the knock-offs out-numbered the Real Deal, alas] as was the occasional rail buggy. But then, we had “mud runs” around here and rhe Sunriser Rally would come thru once a year, so plenty of places to raise Hell. And they were great fun out on the street, too!

I’ll not comment on the appropriateness of it, of all vehicles, being NHVR’s second choice, but just leave this as a memoir and love letter to the car and the Era.

I had the open wheel version, the Toad, with a 2180cc motor, Mexican cases, Berg counter weighted crank, Engle 120 cam, ratio rockers, 35.5/40 dual port heads, 48 IDA Webers with Weber linkage, Dog house oil cooler, Tri-mill exhaust, 210mm clutch, rhino case transaxle w/a super diff (4 more spider gears) hardened right hand swing axle plate, ’67 front axle with ball joints. Had it weighed at the recycling place on San Fernando road, weighed 1280 lbs full of gas. Needless to say with that 160 HP engine it hauled ass. I have always had Baja bugs, that were more user friendly for me (cops ignored you) and were better for sleeping in (remove the passenger seat, replace with a big plywood board). My last Baja had a 1600cc single port motor with a dog house grafted on the single relief case somehow, it worked.. I sold it to some kid down the street after I got paralyzed and it’s still running. This is the first time in my life I haven’t owned a VW Beetle. Miss the little indestructible cars that float.

I owned a yellow Meyers Marx in the 1980’s and had a lot of fun with it. The wife insisted I get rid of it, before I killed myself.. It was either the car or the wife. I choose the wife. I could not sell that bug – nobody wanted it.

I eventually traded it to a car lot for a Chev worth $50. It’s now one of many I wish I still had. In those days, and maybe even today, there wasn’t much out there that returned more fun for the money spent to create it.

I always have liked these Myers Manx but never had one, That was a cool design that Bruce came up with, simple yet effective and long lasting.
I really liked the one owned by Steve McQueen that had a Corvair engine and Steve drove it in the movie `The Thomas Crown Affair’, it was awesome. His buggy was built by Crown Engineering, don`t know if that influenced the movie name or not.
It is great that Bruce was able to have his first Manx back, alot of us would like to have our first favorite vehicle back!

When Gates got out of the tire business, Dick Cepek started selling his Predator XT tires which appeared nearly identical. Western Ato also sold the Sand Blaster Jr tire which was also a close replica. Today the Mickey Thomson Mini-Mag and Baja Pro are as close as you can find.

How is it that they were forced to defend their designs after copycats, but it was just fine to put the bodies on other manufacturers chassis. I have seen many fiberglass dunebuggy designs and they are different. Meyers was upset as he was outdone.

when I lived at home in the ’60’s thru the early ’70’s they were grading I 35 E and we lived RIGHT by it. when the grading was done it sat for a year,i don’t know why but I saw a lot of thing’s out there on the grade. dune buggy’s,dirt bike’s paraglider’s and snowmobile’s all winter long.

Nice 50 year anniversary present Bruce! Is this the year the dune buggy phenomenon finally gets it’s rightful place in automotive history and collector circles? The 60’s and 70’s dune buggys (all of them) deserve more recognition. Get yours now…
Deserter GT, Bushwhacker SS, Allison Daytona, Empi imp, Glitterbug, Etc. We can all thank Bruce Meyers for a thousand smiles an hour!

Bruce developed a great vehicle and “Old Red” is quite deserving. Bruce is building and selling even better and more refined buggies to this day. Congratulations Bruce, it couldn’t happen to a nicer more deserving person!

I was lucky enough to work with my Dad at Pre Fab Crate Company,in Costa Mesa,Ca. when Bruce Meyers came
Driving up in Old Red,ask my dad to design a Crate for shipping his cars in,he did,i went with him too crate the first one,and after that i crated them all my self,i was 25 at the time,now 71,i could have had one of the first,like Old Red,but was into jeeps at the time,which i had of of course,have one now,a 1966 Manx,belong too the club,and go on as many runs as i can,i cont. too crate the cars till they closed in 1972 over at Fountain Valley plant,still made back seat plywood parts,sold too Ted Treavers Air Craft int.a 100 at a time,i designed a jig too route them out 5 at a time,Love your Car Bruce,and am so very happy for you, Congratulations,Always.

I am the historian for the HVA gathering documentation on Old Red. Would you have any photographs or documentation of Manx from the 1960s at your dad’s shop you would be willing to share with us for research purposes?

Nice article. Thanks Daniel. I would just as soon have doors and a roof and my 4wd. Up in the mountains of the southwest on the unpaved clay things tend to get a bit hairy when you get a sudden downpour. Slicker n snot.

I also prefer creature comforts when driving down arroyos or washes. Dry riverbed for those who dont know. Gotta make sure no rain in the forcast for days to do the arroyos becsuse of them having flash floods which will push a vehicle downstream in a heartbeat!

Forgot to mention…..I guess the article is why the whole newsletter sidebar featured all classifieds for buggies. Suprised at the prices! Seems to me everything keeps getting more expensive kind of driving some of us to the sidelines. Sell one and it might be quite awhile before or if we get another!

They were easy to service. I had a Verners box that just fit under the crank-case. Put 4 bolts and a few wires and just push the buggy out of the way -No jack required. Also J C Whitney had all kinds of VW goodies like over size cylinder jug sets – and were cheap!

Where is Steve Mc Queens Manx? cant help , thinking Meyers copied Bill Devin , in the making of his cars , The Devin C , for Corvair was indeed a supercar with its turbo Corvair unit fitted and a wt of just over 1200lbs!

How can you think that Meyers copied the Devin “C”? The Devin uses exclusively Corvair drive train and a custom built chassis from Devin. The Devin is designed for road use and utilizes full fenders along with doors. The Manx was designed for off road use, utilizing a VW chassis and drive line along with a steep approach and departure angle. The body was also designed so rocks won’t chip the paint, hence the rough fiberglass, painted flat black below the fenders for easy touchup.

After playing with “water pumper” dune buggies in 1964, I saw the Manx and had to have one. I built mine in October ’67 and still have it. My kids where raised in the back seat at Pismo, it was our second car. Probably 300k miles later we are still having fun. Bruce, thanks for your vision in developing a line of family fun cars.

Speaking of Manx and Shelby in the same article, I used to own a Manx that had previously belonged to Carroll Shelby. It was original and tired, so I had it restored to match my Cobra replica. It was fun and affordable and I wish I still had it!